'30 Rock': A little taste of the lemon

This week, "30 Rock" felt like a little bit of an object lesson. You think the economy's rough on you? Try being threatened with having your straw budget cut as you watch rats crawling around on your soda cans. That, my friend, is some pain.

I don't have Trix up my sleeve, but I do have spoilers ahead...

Difficult economic times have forced budget cuts onto the Sheinhardt Wig Company, which posted losses this quarter for the first time since the Civil War. And it's bad. Jack awards the TGS crew "decorative air holders" (a.k.a. dummy bottles of booze) to celebrate their 50th show, he had to let Jonathan go, and Liz's wild Coke (as in soda) parties are officially a thing of the past. While he's firing Matthew from the boom box division ("We're not behind the times -- we're groovy.") and his counterparts in microwaves and everywhere else in the company, Liz has to justify TGS' budget to an outside consultant (Roger Bart). Which she does, in a presentation that I imagine is eerily like the May upfronts, except that it ends in jazz hands.

And it totally doesn't work. She has to cut 25 percent of her budget -- but refuses to cut staff (including Sid, the unintelligible announcer), perks like food and straws, or, as she tells Jack, the ability to "keep making free long-distance prank calls to people like... Seattle's Richard Sacmuncher." And since she can't make the cuts, she comes in the next day to find the food gone, Sid fired, and Peter and Frank in a panic. "It's a massacre!" Peter says. "I can't go back to teaching high school math. Those girls pretend they're not women, but they are." Liz decides to, ah, take one for the team, as it were, and goes out on a date with the consultant in a desperate bid to save her budget. And she's armed -- with the dress Jenna wears in the hooker sketch, the heels Tracy wears when he plays Michelle Obama and double -- no, triple -- Spanx.

Soon enough, it all comes down to the bargain. "We go upstairs, 20 minutes, open mouth, I will work your ears," she offers. But he protests, saying he needs to know it's worth it. "Fine -- 30 minutes, I'll make some sounds and you can say one weird thing to me." Finally, she offers "front top quadrant," and it's on. Except that it's not. The next day, the writers' room has been turned into the headquarters for Telemundo's World Cup Soccer qualifying show.

Furious, Liz turns on the consultant, demanding to know where her pro quo is, since she gave up the quid. But it didn't occur to him that last night was about business -- he just saw it as the first time he'd been with a woman since his wife died -- and promptly bursts into tears. And then files a sexual harassment complaint with human resources. "He alleges you tried to barter sex in exchange for professional consideration," the HR rep tells her. "In the HR world we refer to that as being a filthy prostitute." Jack comes to her defense, contending that her "sexual outburst" was brought on by menopause. After a two-week suspension without pay, Liz will return to find the TGS budget process overseen by Jack.

Meanwhile, let us all shed a tear (or something) for poor, scary Kenneth. After Jack has to fire Jonathan in the cutbacks, he makes Kenneth assume Jonathan's duties in addition to his page responsibilities -- and it's a lot for him to handle. You'll be fine if you just follow the three Ds, Jack tells him: discretion, docility, and don't use my bathroom. Words to live by, if I've ever heard any. But because Kenneth is so swamped by the corporate intrigue of his new job, he doesn't have time to feed his bird, Sonny Crockett. Tracy gets sucked into going over to Kenneth's to take care of Sonny ("Why can't you read human facial cues?"), duly warned not to go into Kenneth's bedroom. Mysterious...

At Kenneth's, Tracy finds a rolled-up towel at the base of the bedroom door, and begins to suspect Kenneth is a serial killer. He convinces Jenna of his theory, based in part on one of the classic serial killer characteristics being an inability to read human facial cues, and they head to Chez Kenneth. In the bedroom they find a bug bomb ("Oh no! Kenneth is a murderer! And the Riddler is coming!") and promptly run from the place, leaving poor Sonny Crocket to die. "It's not enough that you killed the bird I've had for almost 60 years, but the fact that you didn't trust me is unforgivable!" Kenneth says when they tell him both about the bird and about their killer suspicions. Their make-up gift to Kenneth -- filling his apartment with a menagerie of new fowl -- ends it all on a sunny note.

I fell a little bit more in love with this show tonight. Some of the reasons:

• The running "Pelican Brief" joke -- which made me feel a little bit better that it's not only me who can't shake the continual loop of certain movies on Showtime.
• The stats don't lie: According to Liz, TGS is the number-one late night show among men 9 to 13... and the morbidly obese. Oh, and they're in final negotiations to create content for America's jails.
• Liz's conversation with the woman who was planning to offer Jack a little action in exchange for keeping her job -- and the suggestion that they, ah, go in there together and give Jack a little show.
• The skits in Liz's clip reel for the consultant included: Flava Obama, a rap by Suri Cruise, and an out-of-control fart machine, in addition to the bear and robot talk show.
• Jack Donaghy. There's not a line he says that's not gold. After "Malice" I never thought I'd say it, but it's just impossible not to adore Alec Baldwin.

What did you think? Have you ever... bartered for professional consideration? Should Kenneth have forgiven Tracy and Jenna so easily? Do you think we'll ever see Jonathan again?